Ætherglow #27

You decide to inject K.

As you grab onto his shirt and pull yourself closer to him and him to you, his eyes open, staring right at you. He tries to push himself away from you, but you get your hands on his left arm. He reaches with the other to try to pull you off, but his movements are unsteady, the substance is still affecting him as much as you.

You press the hypospray nozzle against his upper arm and squeeze the button, just as his fingers clamp tight around your neck. With a hiss and a flash of the device’s LED, it injects the last of its fluid reservoir. K’s fingers loosen. You gasp for breath as your airflow returns.

He stares at you as his body relaxes, and forces out one word before falling back into dissociation, “ÆON…”

With K sedated, the adrenaline begins to give way to the dissociative in your brain. Looking up the corridor, you see Vik has already lost their grip on consciousness, and before you can fight it, you too are back in the void.

With your interface collar shut off, there is no electronic connection to be made, and you drift into a chaotic, dreamlike space. The visions you see have much of the quality of the æther, but none of the substance, nor the control. You see the flat expanse of the Mare Moscoviense. The white sun floats above the horizon, but it does not burn your eyes. The long shadows of Korolev City stretch across the plain. You see letters, words, numbers, forming sentences and lines of code which are completely meaningless. You see the stars, both the real stars and the æther stars blended together into an alien sky, half physical and half æthereal. And you see yourself floating among them, surrounded with a white aura.

When you open your eyes again, you feel amazing. For having just been in mortal peril followed by an incomprehensible experience, you have no anxiety or fear at all, only complete euphoria. Looking around the corridor, some of your fellow passengers are awake, some still motionless, and one, K, is unconscious and restrained, with Ana floating next to him with the hypospray nozzle in hand.

Synth notices you stirring and climbs across the corridor toward you. “Great job, Aydan.”

“He almost woke up in time to stop me,” you say.

“He realized what we were doing and tried to pull out. That forced him to dispel his ætherlock and confirmed our suspicion. As soon as K’s metaconscious state collapsed, his technopathy failed, and I could get an unhindered look into the system and confirm him as the one responsible for the attack. But none of us have any idea why he did it. We’re just lucky Ana figured him out in time.”

Ana looks over at you. “It was her who told me to check K’s implants, though.”